Global High-Tech Innovation

February 2017

February 28, 2017

In a previous post, I presented the challenge of calculating the value of corporate data spread across multiple clouds:

A trust is defined as a collection of assets managed by an owner for the benefit of another. In the context of data valuation, which vendor(s) can create and manage the internet-scale digital trust depicted below? How can the enterprise of the future extract maximum business value out of the entirety of their distributed data portfolio?

I used the diagram below to highlight that most corporations (depicted by the building icon in the center of the diagram) spread their application and data assets across multiple clouds.

In order to implement a digital trust, an architecture must first be defined. An internet-scale digital trust architecture will be characterized by the following architectural elements:

Figure 3 depicts an expanded digital trust that highlights the variety of hardware touchpoints (ATMs) that move data in and out of the trust.

How can a corporation consistently deploy applications across this decentralized infrastructure? Remember that we've architecturally defined applications as "initiators" of data deposits and withdrawals. A corporation must be able to deploy and manage these applications with fluidity.

In my next post, I will look at traditional forms of consistent application deployment as part of a multi-cloud digital trust.

February 16, 2017

In 2014 EMC partnered with Capgemini to conduct an industry survey on Big Data. Buried deep within the Big Data Report was the following quote:

“Among our respondents, 63% consider that the monetization of data could eventually become as valuable to their organizations as their existing products and services”.

In other words, companies that generate revenue from selling products and services strongly believed that this revenue must be augmented with new sources of value coming from data products and services. In order to validate and respond to the perceived needs of Dell EMC’s customers, the Office of the CTO launched a “Data Valuation” research initiative with Dr. Jim Short of the San Diego Supercomputer Center.

As this partnership enters its third year, the need for data valuation has been well documented. EMC began releasing data products and services for the first time. Data valuation services and software solutions are now available to customers. These services and solutions allow data center operators to build a “digital bank”. A digital bank is defined as a local repository (typically a Data Lake) with a catalog of data assets that have been annotated with statements of business value.

The ability to create and operate a digital bank has the following advantages:

Buying and selling data sets becomes more streamlined (the value of locally-owned assets is known)

Improved data quality leads to high data value, which leads to new data products and services

The value of analytic models can be ascertained, enabling ROI metrics for data science initiatives

Data value can now be used as an input to data management

Every one of these benefits addresses the concerns that inspired the research. Capgemini survey respondents were generally aware of the need to increase profitability by leveraging data. New services and solutions are now enabling the creation of data valuation business processes on top of IT-enabled data catalogs. Analysts from Gartner and Wikibon are publishing related research findings.

The concept of digital banks, however, is new. Early movers face the challenge of extending the local digital bank concept to a federated (digital trust) model. How can geographically dispersed data assets, located within the distributed confines of multiple cloud providers, be protected, managed, and leveraged in the same way as privately controlled assets? This question can best be understood by highlighting example cloud provider use cases for data:

A trust is defined as a collection of assets managed by an owner for the benefit of another. In the context of data valuation, which vendor(s) can create and manage the internet-scale digital trust depicted below? How can the enterprise of the future extract maximum business value out of the entirety of their distributed data portfolio?

One answer is to create a digital trust architecture. I will describe this architecture in upcoming posts.

The pace in the Dojo is designed to result in continually creating working code. Every morning the team holds itself accountable for it coding progress during stand-up. It's no fun to give a status of "I made no progress yesterday". Checking corporate email and checking your phone gets in the way of this progress. Any time spent in reflection and discussion on what was learned is documented and attached to the Pivotal tracker backlog.

My personal blog is a scratchpad where I reflect on what I have learned and share it in the hope that it helps others apply the knowledge I just gained. As a result of the pairing work style, I went a whole month without updating my personal blog. The main reason is that I didn't have the time that I usually spend putting together my thoughts. It was all dedicated to producing the code.

Cutting My Typing in Half Was More Productive

During the pairing process, I yielded control of the keyboard while my pairing partner typed. In theory, 50% or more of my time was spent watching my partner's keystrokes. It's a bit of a paradox that typing less results in more productivity. During the month of January, my pairing partners and I downloaded more software and coded more prototypes than I had done by myself in the previous quarter.

Rotation Is Cool

After my first few days in the Dojo I arrived at work one day and was moved to a completely different project that I knew nothing about. I had been in the middle of debugging some problems that we had been seeing in some open source software that we had downloaded the day before. All of a sudden it became someone else's problem and I was able to wipe my mind clean and focus on learning something new. This rotation approach resulted in my teammates and I developing a fluency in every project that the Dojo was working on. Having so many minds applied to the problem resulted in a diversity of viewpoints for coding which is not possible when working alone.

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Disclaimer

The opinions expressed here are my personal opinions. Content published here is not read or approved in advance by DELL Technologies and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of DELL Technologies nor does it constitute any official communication of DELL Technologies.